


The Humanity of a Telepath

by DaLaRi



Category: X-Men (Movies)
Genre: Character Study, M/M, Meta
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-26
Updated: 2014-10-26
Packaged: 2018-02-22 16:27:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 3,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2514314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaLaRi/pseuds/DaLaRi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of meta works about and partially from the point of view of Charles Xavier. The works are to be updated as written, written from knowledge of the movie!verse and focusing in part on the relationship, interpreted by the author as a romantic if perhaps not sexual love, between him and Erik Lensherr. Will contain drabbles now and again, mostly from Erik's POV, not in the least to provide contrast.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kisses 1/2
> 
> Pre-Cuba
> 
> Erik's POV
> 
> A side effect of having listened to Rage and Serenity too much in my free time.
> 
> More to follow. Please tell me if and/or when anything is misspelled. Comments are welcome and appreciated.

A transfusion of hope and optimism, pushed to urgently against him that he's surprised he's not lifted off his feet, a passion and a depth of emotion so deep that he feels like but a sailboat on the surface. And it's amazing how the weight of a world no longer sits so heavily on his shoulders, and there is energy that he finds, energy all his own, that surges out from the depths of his being, and somehow he finds a way to reciprocate, to convey some modicum of the depth of his own emotion. He presses down and Charles presses up, and he doesn't need to ask why this is different that with anyone else he's ever had, because he can feel it like marrow in his bones, the knowledge that they are at equilibrium. There is no slowness here, no need for recklessness or restraint. Their full strengths are equal, and when they break apart they can still feel it tingling in their mouths, the feeling of an equal and opposite force, against which they can stretch the full length of their potential and exercise without restraint the full extent of their power. And it is this that puts them at peace, one who has been forced all his life to restrain and control the intangible nature of his strength, the other who's been fighting their entire life against something virtually like smoke on a glass. But now they have another person, tangible and immovable, against whom they can be the full extent of themselves, like a wall to stretch one's hamstrings against or two uncemented halves of an arch.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Notes on DOFP, 1/??
> 
> Reflecting on the change of his state of mind, and how it shows when he speaks.
> 
> More to follow. Please comment.

He seems like the kind of person who could fight a smile for minutes on end, allowing these brief spreading smiles before closing his lips back once again, like a field of small flowers opening and closing in fast-forward. There's just this tightness, this restraint about his mouth when he speaks that influences how he shapes his words. There's a tightness in his back teeth too, almost ratchetlike, that I haven't quite figured out yet.  
It's even more prevalent, the tight keeping of that space, when he's crying, when all the muscles in his face, especially about his mouth are contracting, his lips pursued, but there's still that space when he forms his words. It's gone in DOFP, that tension is sort of transferred to the bunch of muscles in your nose and eyes and forehead and back of the throat that get sore when you try to stop crying. The transfer of tension frees up his mouth for that angry and bitter full-spreading grin, but it makes him more volatile, the tears closer to the surface. It is what allows him to cry at the slightest provocation, out of anger, frustration, all the volatile emotions that the freedom of his mouth allows him, provokes in him. That freedom triggers the emotions, which tighten the muscles around his nose and eyes, and makes it even more hair-trigger likely that he gets set off again. It awful to watch, the eventual descent into a weeping, helpless fit where he throws things and is exhausted and loosens some of the tension in his face, but the underlying muscle ache is still there and the knot in the back of his throat is ever-growing. It's a gradual upward slope of tension leading to an inevitable breakdown, and worse, it's a cycle, and it's leaving him raw and disenchanted with the very idea of recovery. It is seen as a just punishment, in a sick, twisted way, and it is accepted, a form of emotional self-flagellation equivalent to pulling of your eyebrows to relieve the tensions of the muscles under it. It is unsustainable. One day there's going to be an out-of-term breakdown, and he's not going to pull/push himself back up. He just won't have the strength. And that is when the clam will truly be broken. A creature used to being curled around its center is pulled open and is unable to pull itself closed again. It would require a million tiny pushes to get it back closed again, much back to some semblance of a function.  
And the fact that he was wrenched open was why, in part, he rejected his telepathy. His ability was just as much about making himself vulnerable as it was making other people vulnerable. And maybe he hurt someone with it, maybe he nearly did and just barely stopped himself, or maybe it was the first time he lost control in Cerebro, but something that happened because of his lack of self-control made him terrified, at the stage in his transformation where he could still be terrified to the depths he could before, and that fear sat with him and festered in him until he finally revolted against it, threw it away from himself with all the force he could muster, and slammed the doors of Cerebro behind it. And he hadn't realized before how much worse that would be. Because without his telepathy, he could use his own injuries to justify anything. No one could force him to see sense; physical pain had never really reached him, and no one had a will strong enough to break through his mental walls. But the mansion didn't have collective screaming nightmares anymore, and maybe that was part of it, that he was able to duck all his responsibilities, let them fall on who they may, and grieve, completely, selfishly, and angrily, without fear of collateral damage. He could sleep and wake up laughing at the nightmares, at how much he'd cared, bury it all because somewhere, the part of him that had cared so much was revolting, but without his telepathy, he wasn't being forced to listen to it. The walking hadn't factored in at the beginning, not truthfully, it had just justified him shutting away his gift.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kisses 2/2
> 
> During DOFP
> 
> A side effect of having thought about Rage and Serenity too much in my free time.
> 
> More to follow. Please comment.

It's teeth and lips and a tendency to snarl, mouth not so much soft but a vessel for angry lips and too much teeth, but this is it, this is what they've needed, this is the relief of the tension between them that's been hovering like humidity in the air, this is their anger and their tangled betrayal realized, and it is necessary. Maybe not infused with the same meaning it would have had before cuba, but fierce and irrevocably binding all the same. and it is theirs and they are proud.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts on Apocalypse 1/??
> 
> More to follow. Please comment.

He needs to internalize that control before he can become Patrick Stewart, needs to integrate it to the point where his control becomes like breathing, and his power truly becomes just another one of his senses. And for this he needs to reach equilibrium with Magneto, needs to rest their foreheads together and know that he can trust him. And that is the point where they reach where their counterparts are, where Charles can throw his voice inside another person's mind without the guilt of it blocking him from true fluency. Even though you can use your eyes to pry into the lives and the businesses of others, it doesn't make you hesitate when you go to open them, and I feel like that, in essence, is what Erik is going to end up teaching Charles. He has never thought of his power as anything other than a sense, never thought to hold it at arm's length because of how entangled it was with his emotion and his being. And eventually this is what needs to happen with Charles. It is what happens during the original X-Men movies, when his telepathy is so integral a part of him that the drug he is given to inhibit it (which, in hindsight was probably the same thing he was taking /willingly/ in DOFP) sends him into shock, as would likely be the case if the brain was stripped of another one of its essential processes.  
And I hold out no reasonable expectation that this epiphany will happen with their ever-tightening orbits colliding in the long-overdue kiss I feel like many of us are waiting for, but rather, I am expecting, in the very least, a moment of silence and a forehead touch before they turn back to back and the music swells in the beautiful counterpoint of themes found in Rage and Serenity that no one will ever be able to convince me is not that of two people in love. They will do something amazing, each with their respective powers, and in that moment, they will look more fully like their counterparts than any other time before. I have no doubt that McAvoy and Fassbender could pull it off. I've seen them act. I can only hope that the writers and directors and producers will see it the same way as I do, because that is the only way I can see McAvoy's character ever transforming into the character Stewart inhabited. I've spent so long in the two of their heads to think that I have a reasonable guess of the set of their characters, from the way their jaws are positioned to the way their expressions look at rest, there is a transition that needs to be made, and the phasing out happens like this.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Drabble
> 
> Erik's POV
> 
> Please forgive me.

Charles is coughing now, and there's red on his lips, his too-red lips, a wet, liquid red, redder even than the so-dark pink that sticks out so well in Erik's mind's eye- and it was always going to be a bullet, wasn't it, that took Charles, another bullet he wasn't in time to stop. And Charles hears that, just like he hears everything these days, doesn't he, because there's this bitter, ghastly laugh, rasping out like a cough from between his lips, wetting his lips with another crimson wave, not yet enough to start spilling over, but now it's his mouth, the set of his jaw and the stance of his mouth that captivates Erik; it seems like there's always this face-cramping balance between empathy and bitterness in Charles's face these days, but oh god he can't help but notice again; his lips are so red, so much blood, so much blood, but no, Erik _can't_ look away, not for a second, because there's blood on Charles's lips and a hole ripped through his chest. He won't look away, won't look up and out this time, because he can feel the need for vengeance building up like a migraine inside his throat and in his head, and he can't leave Charles lying here alone, so he looks down at Charles and tries to be gentle, tries not to think about how Charles seemed to stutter and stop in his chair this time instead of arching and falling like he did on that too-bright day in Cuba, and he tries with all the force of his will not to think about what that might mean. But then Charles looks into his eyes like he's drowning, and there's a dark, cold panic replacing the bitterness in his eyes and Erik can feel it at the edge of his mind in the space where Charles always is, a dark, sucking pit that he is trying so hard to scrabble out of. His eyes lock on Erik's, and for a second Erik is afraid Charles is going to say "Don't let me die like this," to ask something impossible and heroic of him when he knows that he's utterly, damnably helpless to stop it, but the panic is setting in in those blue, bluest eyes, and the words that he finally throws out from red lips are worse, oh god, so much worse than anything he could have imagined. "Alles ist gut," are the words Charles says, with his terrified eyes going still in their panic. A single, last terrified breath and Erik is sure, with a sureness part rage and part terror that it's not the present that Charles is seeing. "Alles ist gut." Then a rattle, then still. And, oh, oh the stillness; it's so, so much worse.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lyrics to the tune of Billy Joel's Vienna
> 
> Set in the Patrick Stewart Era.

Slow down, please, my old friend  
You're so ambitious; when will this quest end  
But then if you’re so sure, tell me,  
Why are you still so afraid? (mmmmm)

Where's the battle, what's the hurry about?  
You better calm yourself before you wipe us out  
You’ve got so much to lose  
And yet you still try to chase me away (Ay)

But you know that when the truth is told  
That you can get what you want  
Or you can just get old  
You're gonna make sure that every one of your fears come true (Oooh)  
When will you realize... that I will wait for you?

Slow down ‘n think it through  
You can't expect the world to be the same as what you knew  
Although it’s easiest to fear the ghosts we knew at night (at night)

My friend, think of the life that you lead  
You're so ahead of yourself that you forgot what you need  
I must insist that you're wrong  
No matter how much it seems that you're right (you're right)

You got your cause and you’ve got your pride  
But don't you know there’s no way you’ll be satisfied?  
Old friend, imagine if all of your dreams come true (Oooh)  
When will you realize... that I will wait for you?

Slow down, and calm your mind  
Take your cape off your back and come back home for a while  
It's alright, you can afford to lose a day or two (oooh)  
When will you realize... that I will wait for you?

And you know that when the truth is told  
That you can get what you want   
Or you can just get old  
You're gonna get killed before you see even see one dream through (oooh)  
Why don't you realize... that I will wait for you?  
When will you realize... how long I’ll wait for you?


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Notes on DOFP 2/??
> 
> Slightly Pre-Movie
> 
> Written first person from Charles's POV

I can’t do this anymore. I can’t-  
I can’t listen to them, I won’t open myself up to all the _noise_  
They’re still there, and I can feel them, I’ve been linked to them from Cerebro, but I can’t-  
No. Not anymore.  
I feel them there and most days I find myself crying, and god, why can’t I stop crying Hank’s here, I need to keep up appearances-  
What appearances are _left_ to keep up?  
There's no professor here, he tells them, the ones looking for shelter, for refuge. He says the words and they turn away devastated, but he believes every syllable of it. I don’t need to read him, or even face him to see it. It’s in the slump of his shoulders, in the way he averts his eyes when we’re in a room together. It’s not shame, but I can feel his awkwardness suffusing into the walls, like he’s trespassing on something private. In another time I suppose I would have been touched. But, if anything I’ve proved I don’t need privacy to fall apart. He should know that. He was here when the school fell apart. I’ll do anything not to lash out at a student ever again.  
We lost Alex that way- I lost Alex. I lost us Alex.  
God, I left his mind raw, every bloody second of that memory stripped open to him, and it took less than a _thought_ , how am I better than Emma Frost, how can I claim to be better than her, I tore Alex’s mind wide open because he tried to corner me into an admission. How am I better-  
 _I’m not._  
So I locked them out. I used the draft to convince myself I wasn’t hiding, let the war take the students I loved so dearly, so that I could hide. I let them die, let them be taken, so that I could hide.  
 _Have you aged a day since the Markos left, you stupid helpless boy? Are you still curling up in cupboards when you need to hide?_  
And I couldn’t face them. Not a single one, I ran and I hid and I blocked them out because all their accusations were _right, damn it_. And finally, I closed Cerebro. It was far too much of a relief to close her down, especially since I still dream about the feeling of that space, but no. She’d been gathering dust anyway, and I needed that one more wall as I blocked them all out. So I could let them leave, let them grow to hate me. So I could convince myself I didn’t care as they left.  
Every single second of every single day I have to focus on blocking them out, because-  
-because I can’t empathize with anyone.  
Not if I want to keep this up. This hatred.  
It feels…. _**indescribably** nauseating_ … trying to hate. Not trying to, no, that’s the worst part. I’m succeeding, and doesn’t it say something wonderfully ironic that Erik has turned me into something capable of hate? And god, I hate him **_so much_** , with everything I am capable of.  
And I can’t empathize with a single person because if I forgive one person I have to forgive them all, and **_I’m not willing to_**. He took Raven, he took everything, and he left me, nothing can justify that and I have to stop myself from forgiving anyone, because then I’ll forgive him and **_he doesn’t deserve it._**  
Not my respect, not my forgiveness, not my empathy, nothing.  
But, the cost of it, the price I’ve paid for it, I can’t look into anyone else’s mind, I can’t let Cerebro make me into a beacon, I can’t afford a single glimpse of human empathy, because I’ll...  
I’ll crack.  
I’ll shatter.  
I’ll give in and see sense, and I don’t want to, I want to be childish, because he took Raven, and **_he left me_**.  
More than that. He blocked himself out. Took something that he knew would stop me, and used it, fully and willfully, and he knew that I couldn’t do anything about it. He made me helpless, and with Shaw, I knew what he was doing, I could see it, and **_of course, of course I felt it,_** but it was only physical pain, only physical, and excruciating as it was, to have his eyes bore into the eyes I looked through, to feel Shaw’s terror and know I was abetting to murder, to have that godawful coin push thr-  
\- …God, I’m a child, just a stupid, helpless child, and I’m crying again, stupid, stupid, stupid.  
But it was only physical. And so I could distance myself from it. Of course I was numb from it hollowed out, but when he turned the missiles, I was livid again, my helplessness, my rage, the uselessness of my control, _why didn’t he ever **listen** to me_ , and the sheer  **unfairness** of it all, the fact that Erik took her, the fact that he left me there on the beach and never once stopped to think, and I had to just go on, just had to keep going, of course I hate him, I have to hate him. I can’t forgive him. Not for that.  
And touching one mind, just one, one split-second where I flick behind their eyes, will make me empathize, and then I will, irrevocably, forgive him. My gift doesn’t give me a choice.  
So isn’t it better not to have it at all? To have legs that I can use? To take back one thing he took from me, one that doesn’t require my forgiveness? My forfeit?  
It’s far better to walk than to forgive Erik Lensherr.


End file.
